Homeland Security officials downplay need for antiterrorist center

The intelligence community has the virtual capability to share terrorist watch list information and may not need a physical terrorist screening center, homeland security officials said this week.

Agencies within the Homeland Security Department have demonstrated the ability to integrate and share terrorist information even though they have yet to produce a unified, consolidated watch list database, said Steve Cooper, the Homeland Security's chief information officer.

"There is not a single, physical consolidated watch list…but we can deliver the equivalent," Cooper said in an interview during a conference sponsored by the American Forces Communications and Electronics Association. "We believe that we have made the country safer and that we are moving watch list information to authorities who need that information, even though it's not coming from a single, consolidated source."

The government established the Terrorist Screening Center last year to consolidate 12 existing government databases on suspects into a unified watch list that local, state and federal law enforcement authorities can access. For example, officials who screen visa applications or individuals at U.S. ports of entry would be able to get information from the center.

Located at the FBI, the center became operational in December, but has not yet developed a consolidated watch list for authorities to use. DHS Secretary Tom Ridge told the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in early February that the merger of watch lists would be accomplished by this summer.

The department's 2004 strategic plan released this week however, states that a fully integrated watch list database will not be available until the end of 2004 at TSC, said Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., ranking member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

"I cannot fathom why this consolidation has not yet occurred, when we know full well the dangers to which a lack of intelligence coordination exposes us," Lieberman said. Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee also criticized DHS for not yet having a comprehensive watch list.

DHS Deputy Secretary James Loy said Wednesday that federal agencies already are receiving reliable, timely information about terrorist threats, especially from the Terrorist Threat Integration Center.

Loy said TSC is a "single-purpose organization" that may not need to exist.

"Whether it would continue to need to reside as a free-standing entity on down the road is a subject of opportunity," he said. "[By this] I mean opportunity to discuss the best place for TSC to reside permanently once it has done its thing, which is to integrate the watch lists to such a point that they have the utility that we want them to have throughout the government."

Cooper said TSC is supposed to be fully staffed and managing a unified watch list by December, but acknowledged the center's fate is unknown.

"As of right now, that's the plan. But plans can change," he said.

Loy said TTIC's value was shown during December 2003, when DHS raised the nation's threat level from code yellow to code orange. Loy said TTIC collected terrorist information and provided briefings twice a day to the intelligence community, which then made decisions on how to act.

"I think the system at the moment probably demonstrated its worth during this last orange alert window over the course of the holiday period," Loy said. "When we came down from orange to yellow, we surgically left in place in certain economic sectors and certain geographic locations higher levels of readiness, because that's what the information flow was telling us was the right thing to do."